


Refuge

by Potboy



Series: Defrosted [2]
Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-06 16:56:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5424737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Potboy/pseuds/Potboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Telford puts his plan into effect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Well, this takes him back, Eli thinks, as he stands with his arm in the puddle of the rippling gate. Why exactly had he been so keen to swap a peaceful life of researching in the shuttle's computers all day, or going to the movies with his mom in someone else's body, for the old slog of landing on a planet, finding out what was trying to kill them today, and running for his life? 

It's a rhetorical question, obviously, as Doctors Morrison and Heany throw themselves headlong into the event horizon. Even though everything's changed, and some things he still regrets losing, the team is back and he's not alone any more. 

By his count they're three seconds over the jump time, only him and the colonels left to get home. “Guys, come on!” he yells, because he doesn't know how many seconds grace they've got. And yeah, Chloe could turn the ship around and come back, but there is a solid wall of ravening alien things closing in on them from every side - alien things with teeth the size of his forearm, and gorgeous blue fur – and the colonels' ammunition is going to run out long before then. 

The alien things are edible. The away team had got as far as testing the first one they killed before its stinky alarm pheromones brought all the rest of them out of their nest and to the attack. “Come ON!” 

Young makes a move to retreat, walking backwards a couple of paces with the M4 carbine snugged into his elbow and his eyes on the skies. He's got that Zen look that he gets behind a machine gun or in the pilot's seat of the shuttle, like right now he's as close to peace as he gets. 

But Telford's not going anywhere. 

“David!” Young yells. “We've gotta get out of here.” 

Telford laughs. He's got it too – a kind fey look, like he's having the time of his life. It occurs to Eli  that this is a bonding experience for the two of them. Which is nice. Eli's all for the old crew bonding with the new, as long as it doesn't result in the sudden amputation of his whole arm. “Guys!” 

A couple of alien things – they're a little bit like water bears, but with the aforementioned teeth, and they _fly_ , which is just proof that the universe is out to get Eli, because there's no way that makes sense with the laws of physics being what they are – fall out of the skies on the gangplank, and Telford yells “Kick them through!” 

“Are you insane!” Eli yells, which is also kind of rhetorical because by now he's mostly convinced that Telford _is_. “There's no time for--” 

“Cover me,” says Young, stooping to grab one of the fallen creatures and throw it into the puddle. When he gets the third through, Telford finally deigns to come closer, the wall of predators closing in behind him. 

“You ready?” he asks, kicking another of the bodies in, like the stargate is a football goal and he's just scored the winning point. 

“I'm good.” Young has his rifle back in his hand, walking backwards towards the gate – finally!- laying down fire. He's grinning now, as if Telford's antics amuse him. “Go.” 

Eli watches Telford through. As soon as Young is passing into the puddle, he hurls himself through too. There's a shove in the middle of his back from the wormhole, and then all three of them are standing in the smoky gateroom. Eli rubs his arm – which is still there – and watches the colonels. They've bagged five of the creatures. That's meat for the whole crew for at least a month if it's rationed carefully. And five blue furry hides that'll fetch a pretty price in the onboard barter economy. So maybe Telford isn't mad after all. Maybe he's just a little results orientated. Maybe the real weirdness of the experience is the fact that both men are standing there streaked in alien blood and flash burns, looking bright eyed and happy like they've just had the best holiday. Like, if you asked them to, they'd gladly go back and do it again. 

“Um,” Eli says, kind of pleased, but also kind of freaked. “Did we bring the right Colonel Young through? You're laughing.” 

Young gives him the patented patiently amused look. It's different when it doesn't have to be dredged out of a base of endurance. “You've seen me laughing before, Eli.” 

“Oh yeah,” Eli says, rolling his eyes. “There was that one time in 2009. How could I forget?” 

With Telford taking over as commanding officer, they've all noticed how much of a weight seems to have fallen off Young's shoulders. It's usually more subtle than this, but somehow watching him be relieved and easy in himself brings it home how deeply unhappy he must have been before. And that makes Eli feel a kind of retrospective guilt which is hard to deal with, and probably completely unconstructive anyway. 

“I'm just concerned that you may have been replaced by a pod person,” he carries on. “Or we've slipped into some kind of mirror universe without anyone noticing.” 

It wouldn't be hard. Everything's different since Telford and his team came on board. Now Eli's got two geniuses trying to treat him like their young padawan, when as far as he's concerned he's a Jedi Master right along with them. On the one hand it pisses him off. On the other, he doesn't have the crushing workload he used to have, and McKay at least talks to him about what he's thinking. 

“Good to know you're watching out for the possibility,” says Young, dryly. “You stay vigilant about that.” 

Over the past few months, Young's position as Telford's second in command has become augmented with an unofficial position as the military's civilian liaison. Telford's efficient, but Young's got the personal touch. It's Young who comes by every so often to show an encouraging interest in what you're doing. It's Young who comes by when you're in the infirmary to ask how you are. When you're pulling an all nighter it's Young who turns up to say 'get some fucking sleep' or to put a bowl of food in front of you, depending on the state of emergency. And it's Young' who'd break his heart and lose his words if ever you didn't come back. 

Eli gets that. It's one of the things that makes the ship feel like home. 

So it's not that he doesn't want Young to be happy, it's just that he's really not used to it, and it's kind of strange to see. 

“I'm going to take a shower,” Young says, looking at his blood and soot covered hands. 

“Good idea,” says Telford. “I'll join you.” 

And there's one of those moments. Young looks up, eyes wide, like he's not entirely sure what he's heard, and he's reading it wrong. Telford just goes on smiling. Eli seems to have stopped breathing because his mind went somewhere odd there too, and uh... 

The universe starts up again. “Sure,” says Young, face as closed as it ever gets, expressionless and remote, and they leave together. 

Eli rolls his eyes at himself as he heads off for his room, yeah, he was definitely reading that wrong. Okay so they had a great time on the colonel equivalent of a paintball date and now they're heading off to the showers together? That doesn't mean... _I mean, like, they're both_ really old _. And, you know, not gay, so..._  

He's still going to have to tell Chloe. She's going to murder him repeatedly if he doesn't let her in on this. Man, this day is just getting weirder by the minute.


	2. Chapter 2

Telford enjoys the gamble. He enjoys the throw of the dice that separates victory from failure, that moment where you don't know if you're going to get everything you wanted, or you're going to have to run for your life. It's the best thing in the world, the suspension when you can feel your heart beating under your jaw and your stomach's floating in your chest, and you've never been more alive in your life. 

This shouldn't feel like the turn of a battle or a long played out plot – but it does. Perhaps it _is_ , at that. Perhaps it's the turn of the longest con he's ever pulled, the moment where he shows his cards and comes clean. He is simultaneously exalted and terrified and he's trying not to show either. 

“You can't force the civilians to take part in military training,” Everett is saying as he lowers himself to sit on the black sofa in Telford's room. 

“I absolutely can,” David insists. Normally he'd settle on the other side of his desk, and if they were being informal, he'd pull his seat out and put his feet up, and that would all be very companionable and not what he's going for today. “They're a bunch of lard-asses who wouldn't last a moment in a firefight. It's for their own good, and you know it.” 

“That's not the point,” Everett goes to put his feet up on the coffee table and frowns when David sits next to him. It's not a discouraging frown, not yet. It's just a _This is new. What are you up to_ frown, because Everett knows him well. He knows when patterns are being broken. “The point is that they won't do it. You try to force them, they'll resent it. You'll end up ripping the crew in half. Believe me, I know.” 

Everett's always been a little too easy going, but then again he's always had more success in teams than David, so maybe he knows what he's talking about. “You think there's some other way to get them fit enough to run away from the monster of the week?” 

Everett's shrug is a thing of beauty, particularly when – as now – he's got his jacket off, and the clingy material of his black t-shirt accentuates his shoulders. “Opt in stuff,” he says. “Self defence classes, boxing matches, sports tournaments. Camile and I've been talking about it. Dancing even. Stuff they could believe they were doing for fun.” 

“And the ones who decide not to do anything at all?” It all sounds very namby-pamby to David. When a thing's necessary, you do it and you don't complain. If you need to be kicked into it, you thank the guy who does the kicking. 

“You respect their choice to be the ones who get killed first.” 

Young looks up in surprise as Becker comes in with two covered meals on a tray and sets them down on the table with cutlery and napkins. Becker had all but wept the moment he got his hands on real flour. The inhabited parts of the ship have smelled like new baked bread ever since. But this is an even better smell. This is the smell of sous vide cooked vacuum packed steak, out of Telford's personal possession allowance, and after two months of MREs and weird alien scraps, it makes his cheeks ache with the fierceness with which his mouth waters. 

For Everett it's been, what? Five years since his last decent meal? He's uncovered the food and is staring at it as if it's an omen, a portent. He's not wrong about that. 

Telford smiles. Maybe a little too manic, judging from the way Everett narrows his eyes at him, as though all his suspicions are confirmed. 

“David. Is this...” 

He still can't tell if that's revulsion or if it's just disbelief. He couldn't blame Young if it was disbelief. Without Dr. Weiss maybe he'd also be here wondering why everything that Everett did fucking _mattered_ to him so intensely, wondering how they could swing from friendship to hate and back again so easily and yet never for one moment contemplate the possibility that they might ever just walk away. 

Maybe, without the shrink, he would never have noticed that even in the grip of a brainwashing that could make a man turn against his own mother, he kept the secret that would have got Everett cashiered and out of his life. Maybe without the therapy, he wouldn't have made anything of the fact that Everett had saved him, as David had always known he would. Maybe Everett himself didn't know why he had risked his daughter and his whole crew rather than watch David die. 

David had wrecked the man's marriage – though Everett had made that easy for him – and here they both are still, inseparable. 

Shit, he really hopes they are inseparable. Because this will probably do it if anything can. 

“Is this... a date?” 

Moment of truth. “Yes,” he says, pulling his plate towards him, trying to be casual about the whole thing. He hasn't been punched yet, so that's good. “That okay with you?” 

“Um,” Everett laughs, and then he starts to eat, because whatever the situation you don't let this kind of food go to waste. “Um. Ah, you missed... this?” He gestures with both hands towards his body as though that's some kind of counter-argument, but he hasn't got up and he hasn't stormed away, so this is actually going pretty well. 

“I like that part,” David says, and runs a quick cost/benefit analysis of just coming out with everything. Everett's always enjoyed his oversharing in the past, so why not? “I got well acquainted with it while you were borrowing mine.” 

He'd honestly thought of it as revenge at first, when he'd come out of that first FTL drop-out with its adulterous back and forth, and locked himself in the nearest storage closet to finish off. But in the days afterwards, when he'd go back to Everett's cabin and strip off completely so he could watch himself explore Everett's body with rapt attention to detail, that excuse got a little threadworn. 

It turns out he was doing it so he can lean over now, put a hand on Everett's thigh, and rub his thumb firmly up the patch of inner thigh that turns him on like crazy. Good intel – David treasures it higher than gold. “I know lots of things to do with it that you'll just love.” 

Everett's hand closes on his wrist hard, pulls it away. He's barely got time to acknowledge the part of him that goes cold at that, before he notices that Everett's flushed up. There's heat like anger in eyes. The pain of his grip flashes into something piercingly erotic, because yes. It was something thrilling, illicit, to explore that body with its own hands but oh God he really wants to be able to do it again with his. 

“I'm trying to eat,” says Young, because he's a bastard and he's got some kind of mysterious attachment to doing everything as slowly as possible. But he still hasn't freaked out, and he still hasn't run away, so David gets himself in check and goes back to a meal that's too good for the amount of attention he's paying it. 

“So, uh... when did this happen?” 

Maybe it would have been better being punched than being subjected to this careful cross-examination. He pours them both two fingers of bourbon, and sips. Smooth. Everything's smooth. It's going well. 

“I've been figuring things out the past three years while you were in stasis. Some time in March this year - that's when it all came together and I had to call it what it was. But it's been there ever since we met. You'll see it for yourself if you look.” 

Everett gives a soft huff of laughter and glances at him sidelong. Habitually, he's got so many defences up that it always squeezes David's heart when he drops them as he has now, and he's open and honest and scared. “My best run in any relationship was five years. Yours is what? Seven months? You think the break up would be good for the ship?” 

Is that a yes? Whoa. Whoa! His endocrine system does something he thought was only possible with cocaine, like a hit of liquid joy. “I don't give a fuck about the ship,” he says, putting his left hand back on Everett's thigh. “And they didn't work because they weren't us. Look at us! Twenty years later and I'm still trying to get you to have some fun. Live a little, Everett. It's not going to kill you.” 

Everett ducks his head and grins, like he's really very hard done by and longsuffering, and Telford knows him intimately by now. That's a yes. Whatever he says next doesn't count, because Telford knows his yes when he sees it. 

“You've had three years,” Everett says gently. “I've kinda been blindsided here. I need to take a while.” 

“Oh, you take all the time you need,” says David and inwardly punches the fucking air in triumph. “Twenty three years and counting. No one could possibly call me impatient now.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Are you all right, sir?” 

Young's sitting in his favourite pondering spot, tucked behind a rail on the balcony of the gateroom, the business of the ship flowing by beneath him. He doesn't know how long he's been here, while inside he's been travelling back home and all over the Milky Way and the Pegasus galaxies. It's probably longer than he meant to, because Scott has turned up, as he so often does in these situations, to ask him if he's okay. 

“Fine,” he says, because the kid deserves to stop worrying and enjoy his own newfound freedom from responsibility. “Just rethinking the past twenty years. Turns out I had them all wrong.” 

“Oh man,” says Matthew feelingly, “This ship sure does that to you. I know what you mean. But it's good news, right? Not bad?” 

That crosses the line between concerned and nosy, in his opinion, and anyway he doesn't have an answer yet. He gives a dismissive smile. “I guess I'll find out.” 

He's actually coming down on the side of good, as he watches Matthew take the hint and move off with a casual wave he hopes the kid doesn't try with David. While he's been sitting here, a soft, sleepy warmth has begun welling out of the centre of him and turning his lips up. He can't seem to keep from smiling this little wistful, tentative smile. That has to be hopeful, right? 

Because the thing is that he'd got into the habit of thinking that he was going to live and die alone. And maybe he'd tried to tell himself that it was no more than he deserved, and no big deal. He could manage with half of his heart frozen as long as the rest of it was dedicated to the mission. No one had ever died from mere loneliness before. 

And then he'd dream. He'd dream of Emily, or TJ, and he'd be so fucking glad, so overwhelmed with gratitude at having someone in his arms and his heart again that when he woke alone he'd hardly be able to breathe for the sorrow of finding them gone. 

The idea that his ‘someone’ might be _David_ is unexpected to say the least. But then what hasn't been unexpected since leaving Icarus Base? 

The thought that David might want _him_ is... there's something marvellous about that. Hard to believe, though. David is... Well, he's always been like a God damn hurricane. A little bit lethal. Kind of spectacular. You could enjoy watching it twist its way across your life, but you didn't expect the storm to notice you back. 

He laughs – going for a sigh, but the light that's slowly starting to shine in his deep gloom converts it without his permission. Truth is he's known he loved David since he had to kill him. Watching him suffocate on the other side of a door that he’d had to keep closed had dashed all the little broken pieces of himself out of his grip, and he’s still picking the bastards up to this day. 

When he had to send David back to the Lucian Alliance, half dead; when he’d not been able to kill him for real a second time. That had just confirmed it. When he lost him anyway - had to say goodbye in public, leave him trapped on the seed ship among hostile aliens, both of them sure David was for it this time, and he still hadn't been able to find a single word to say. He’d known for a while by then. 

So yeah, he loves him. But does he even have it in him to love him _that way_? 

He blows out a long refreshed breath and stands. They've done something to the lights in here, maybe? The room seems brighter and the oily hues of the metal walls are more beautiful than he remembers. 

Can he love David that way? He's actually looking forward to finding out. 

~ 

“Hey,” he says later. Night shift and the majority of people have gone to bed. There's no change in the lighting or the heat, but corridors are emptier and there's a kind of mist of shared sleepiness that makes him lower his voice. 

David looks up as he comes into the room, and for a moment he's all hope, before he remembers to apply his usual camouflage of bullshit and smugness. 

Young's heart is fierce in his chest and his hands are cold and he's very much more up for this than he might have expected. “Can I come in?” 

“You need to ask?” 

David's already on his feet. Now he brushes past Young's right shoulder, leaving it jumpy, unsettled, as David locks the door behind him. The sound of a locked door is kind of meaningful between them, and Young isn't sure what to do now because this is... different. This is very-- 

“Christ,” says David, in the awkward pause, “Do I have to do everything myself?” And then he's reached out and pulled Young to him by the back of the neck and he's kissing him like a fucking assault. 

Surprise and arousal go through him like a bolt of lightning. He can practically feel his backbone combust. Well that's that question answered. Oh God. 

David's mouth is wide and strong and forceful against his. He closes his eyes and tips his face up, softening for it, chasing tongue. That's good. And shit, David's researches must have been thorough if he's figured out the back of the neck thing. 

David untucks his shirt and gets his other hand under it, and it just kinda adds to everything that his body remembers the impact of David's fists. When he gets desperate he wishes people would hit him. David's been the only friend who ever has. 

Less of the 'friend' now, he thinks. 'Lover' is exciting and forbidden and – God – getting more accurate by the second. 

“Will you let me fuck you?” David asks, several miles ahead of him, as usual. Another lightning moment of arousal like a body-blow, and yes, by his own choice he'd have taken this slower. Savoured properly all the stages in between. But that's not David's style, and right now he wants to do everything to make David happy. 

“Sure,” he manages, his mouth dry. He tries to solve that with more kisses, but David's got his head bent down, concentrating on undoing his belt buckle. So Young tells himself he's done freakier things than this in the past, and hauls David's shirt over his head, so he can step closer and feel skin against him for the first time in forever. Oh that's... that's lifesaving, that's the end of a long, long drought. He can take any amount of that. 

“It'll be good,” David turns his face into Young's neck and whispers it between kisses. “I've been practicing.” 

This time the bolt's not lust, it's delight. David is such a shit show at times, it's equal parts hilarious and endearing. Young disentangles himself enough to sit down on the bed to tackle the lacings of his boots, feeling suddenly much more at home. “Practicing? Who with?” 

“I hired some guys,” David shrugs, looking rakish and mussed with his hair ruffled and his shirt off and his pants barely clinging on to his hips. It's a good view. “I figured one of us should know what we were doing.” 

“Thoughtful,” Young says, keeping the laughter right down inside, kicking off his boots and dropping pants and underwear on top of them. There's no need to be shy after all, he really hasn't got anything that David hasn't seen before. 

“That's what I figured.” David still eyes him like he's edible, though. Which is new and strange and good. Then he loses his own clothes and lowers himself over Young like a blanket. 

He thought he'd miss breasts, but he doesn't. David is so much bigger than him – wider, taller – that being pinned down under him is like being sheltered. He has to kiss David hard and bite his lip to stop being overcome at how much he's needed that. “Huh,” he says, “Yeah.” 

“You good to go?” 

“Yeah.” Right now he'll do anything at all, no matter how weirdly intimate, for more of this sensation of being both vulnerable and protected, of being safe and not – not in control. 

David's right. It is good. He's never even had a fantasy of being held open, hard hands digging into his aching thighs, and fucked hard, but he will now. You live and learn, right? 

Afterwards neither of them are in any hurry to get up. He's sore and tired and he's still making up on a deficit of hugs, so he pushes a knee between David's legs and rolls up so they're facing one another, on their sides. One hand on David's belly and the other in his hair, as he enjoys the quiet afterglow, drowsy and content. 

“What do you think then? Did I pass?” 

You wouldn't know, to look at David, that he's always scared of falling short, of not being as perfect as he thinks he ought to be. Young breathes a laugh against his shoulder and lets the hand in his hair stroke instead of pull. “Not everything's a test, David.” 

“Yes – yes it is.” 

He wants to say “I'm not. You couldn’t fail hard enough to drive me away.” But that’s what _he_ would like to hear. It’s not David’s bugbear. If he said that, David would think _'he's hedging; that means I wasn't good enough.'_

“You want me to score you out of ten?” 

David goes quiet in a way that means ‘ _yes, but I realize that's ridiculous so I can't say so.’_ And how fucking easy the whole thing is, when you know your lover this well.

“That was an eleven.” 

And suddenly David’s grinning again. “Damn right it was.” He leans in to worry the side of Young's throat with a deep sucking kiss. It takes Young a long time to realize how embarrassing a hickey is going to be in the morning. By the time he shoves David away it's too late. 

“That's going to mark.” 

“Which is the point,” says David, smugly. “I want the whole ship to know what you've been up to.” 

The light that had begun to shine in him in the gateroom is a whole bonfire now as he pulls David's head down to his chest with a movement that's half cuff and half caress. “You are such a jerk.” 

David gives a sleepy laugh. “But you love me for it.” 

And he's almost ready to cry again with gratitude because here's a guy who's not going to demand that he says the L word. Here's a guy who's going to work around what he can and cannot do. Maybe David is right about this too – maybe this relationship is one he can keep. 

“Yeah. I do.” 

He falls asleep with his hand over the bruise, smiling. Partly because he's got everything he never dared to think he would ever have again. But partly also because tomorrow, when Eli sees this, his face is going to be a riot.


End file.
